Cloned again

Rating: Null/10 (26 July 2005)

This film takes cloning to a new level. Rather than just being a duplicate of one other clone movie, it borrows its cinematic body parts from a variety of unwilling donors, from "Coma," from "Logan's Run," from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," from "Blade Runner," and apparently from some low budget clone flick that I never even heard of.
But does it make good use of these purloined pieces of plot? The answer is both yes and no. Overall, the story works and Michael Bay turns out a mildly entertaining movie that might satisfy younger viewers who crave a new cinema rush every week, and people like me who will pretty much see anything of a sci-fi nature, but also, pretty much anything Scarlott Johansson appears in.
The big trouble is, this film is such a wasted opportunity and one big reason is that it was made, not as a thinking person's film, but just one more big summer blockbuster that requires that lots of stuff gets blown up. Particularly distressing is the big chase through downtown Los Angeles midway through the film. Forget the incredible lapses of logic in which people eager to keep this cloning scandal a secret do things that would be bound to start major investigations, like blowing up buildings, killing cops, etc. The big question is, why such excess, why all the overkill? One of this film's real strengths is the impressive set design of this slightly futuristic Los Angeles, borrowed heavily as it is from the 1920s vision immortalized in "Metropolis." Rather than have the evildoers chase our hero and heroine though this interesting landscape in some suspenseful manner, they instead just resort to car crashes, helicopter crashes, and lots of other tired antics found in every other action movie.
But I guess this is what 14 year old boys crave, and so this is what they get from Hollywood.
My last complaint is simple. Stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlott Johanssen seem to have zero chemistry together and their mandatory mating towards the end of the film seems tacked on, as if somebody suddenly remembered they needed a love scene and they'd better throw one in. The interesting thing is, these two cloned humans are supposed to be educated to the age of 15 year olds, an age when most kids are chomping at the bits for their first romantic experiences. So something could have been made of their sexual awakening. Instead, we get the one obligatory love scene that has about as much passion as a dental exam.
Overall, I liked this movie, but don't like the fact that in targeting Hollywood's standard teenage audience, the filmmakers have missed every opportunity to make a good film.